Mummies in the Morning

Mummies in the Morning
By Mary Pope Osborne
Publisher/Date: scholastic 1993
# of pages: 65
reading level: 2
Genre: fantasy


Summary:

Jack and Annie have a magic tree house. all they have to do is wish to be somewhere in the books they find in the tree house, and then they travel to the place. in this particular adventure they travel to ancient Egypt. they follow a black cat to a pyramid. in the pyramid the hear a tomb robber before they meet the dead queen of the Nile. she is a ghost who needs their help to pass on to the next life. they help her read the heiroglyphs to find her book of the dead. after they do, they find her mummy all decaying and the ghost is gone. Annie runs away, and Jack hears her yelling for help. she got lost in a passage meant to trick the tomb robbers. after that, they wish to be back home in Pennsylvania. they go back and their mom has made them peanut and butter and jelly sandwiches.

who benefits from reading this book?

any kid who is interested in ancient Egypt will benefit from reading this book. this book presents lots of information and new vocabulary about Egypt in a way that makes it part of the story. it's put into an adventure, so it's more interesting to read about.

what problems could this book cause?

Kids might get scared of the mummy part. it shows an illustration of the mummy and describes it's decayed state. other than that, there probably isn't any other problems with this book. it's an educational adventure!

My reaction:

i remember reading the magic tree house books when i was younger. i remember liking them a lot back then, but when i read this one again, i wasn't very impressed. i understand that it's written for younger kids, but i just didn't think it was written very well. however, i thought it was cool that she was able to teach about Egypt while she was telling a story. that was interesting.